In May of 2017, Tim Gurner, Australian property developer, poked fun at the quotidian luxuries endemic to Western young-adult culture, instructing millennials to “lay off avocado toast,” and save their pennies for a house down-payment instead. Gurner’s glib remark prompted mockery both of the popular breakfast item’s obscenely inflated prices, and a waterfall of similar critiques directed at privileged young professional class who indulges in it. Even prior to Gurner’s comments, plenty of thinkpiece hay has been made of millennials’ spending habits, causing consternation and bemusement.[1] Millennial spending habits have engendered speculation on whether millennial aversion to materiality is merely a delay in their maturation into appropriate American adult materialism; or whether millennials are forging a new way of imaging success.[2] In many respects, millennials are foregoing material goods and gains for more intangible goals. Generally rejecting flashy material purchases (such as luxury cars) as indications of status.[3] The millennial generation employs other metrics to measure status. Because a majority of millennials prize access over ownership,[4] living in a space where they can access cultural … Continue reading Homo AvocadoPanem: An Anthropology of the Millennial Sacrificial Imagination